


repaint, and repaint, and repaint

by fourleafchloe



Series: (i promise) i'll do better [8]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dead May Parker (Spider-Man), Fluff and Angst, Hospitals, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Kidnapping, Parent Tony Stark, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-04 18:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18349457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourleafchloe/pseuds/fourleafchloe
Summary: It should never have happened like this. It should never have happened atall.He hears it when Tony gives in, gasps turning to ragged cries.Everything after that is a blur, and all Peter can think isthat's five....separate from other works in the series





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place in a universe (probably gonna be an au soon) wherein steve and tony are still very estranged post endgame. i.e. they save the dusty people and beat thanos, and the rogues are pardoned, but they're nowhere close to friends again. 
> 
> also may is dead for Maximum Pain 
> 
> buckle up folks 
> 
> title from north by sleeping at last

 

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The water's drugged. 

Something funny about it, Peter thought at first, but he didn't say anything. Fuck.  _ Fuck, _ if he'd only spoken up sooner—

But he didn't. And Tony, for all his genius, doesn't have Peter's superhuman sensitivity. (He'll hate himself for it, later. Blame himself for not figuring out sooner that something was so, so wrong.) 

And now it is all too clear what's happening. 

Peter feels Tony’s calloused hand on his, thumb running over his knuckles. A gentle reassurance. In the past few months—that has been everything. 

Absolutely everything. 

The little things. The memory that he isn't alone, not yet, maybe not ever. That May is gone (and it's destroying him, bit by bit, it really is, he's falling apart) but there is somebody. 

Tony is no longer so distant as he once was. And it's in moments like this—out to dinner, some fancy place, at a nice booth for just the two of them—that it is so abundantly clear all that has changed. 

Peter holds Tony’s hand like a lifetime, grips him back as hard as he can—but his heart’s pounding because, suddenly, that isn't nearly as hard as it should be.  _ “Hell of a grip,” _ Adrian Toomes had said, once, but it's slack now, Peter feels  _ weak _ for the first time in years and there can only be one reason for this. 

And fuck. Oh god. This is— 

_ “The water's drugged,” _ he wants to shout, wants to scream so he can warn Tony.  _ “Mr. Stark, the water's drugged!”  _

But all that comes out is— 

Nothing. Nothing comes out. 

Fuck. 

_ Way to ruin a nice dinner. We didn't even get to order, come on, people, that’s some shitty timing, _ Peter thinks, a weak attempt at humor to combat the terror that thrums through him. 

Mr. Stark looks worried now. Like he's finally caught on, but Peter can't hear what he says next, because— 

Because… 

He's starting to lose his grip on reality. His ears are stuffed with cotton balls—his throat, too, and—his eyes are—heavy, heavy, heavy… 

Oh, fuck. He's gonna— 

_ No, wait—  _

 

* * *

 

 

And then nothing. 

 

* * *

 

 

Once upon a time, Peter was fourteen, and he came home from school to find a crazy expensive car parked outside his apartment complex. He figured that the car and the little girl's lost dog Spidey found the other day would be the highlights of his week. 

Then Tony Stark walked into his life and changed everything. 

 

* * *

 

 

They're both chained to the wall when he wakes. 

Opposite walls, actually. Shackled at the wrists and strung up like—like a fucking crucifixion, is what it looks like. 

Peter could cry he's so scared right now. 

Except he's Spider-Man, and Spider-Man doesn't cry. So there is no crying on his part. None whatsoever. Absolutely not. 

He won't cry. 

“M-Mr. Stark,” he breathes. 

Then, louder, “Mr. Stark!” 

It takes a few tries. A few minutes of pleading on Peter’s part, that in any other situation he’d be embarrassed by—but finally Tony stirs, shifts—and then he jolts awake. His head snaps up and he takes stock of the situation—Peter can see the moment it dawns on him, the rising horror on his mentor's face. Oh. Shit. If Mr. Stark is scared, this is not good. This is really, really, really not good. Like, even more not good than Peter first thought, which is saying something because— 

“FRIDAY,” Tony mumbles. “FRIDAY, talk to me. I'm serious! FRI, come on, I—fuck!” He looks a wreck, panicked and desolate somehow all at once. “You cannot be telling me there is no connection. I should have a connection on every spot on the whole goddamn Earth. You cannot be serious—FRIDAY, please—say something.” 

But Peter hears as well as Tony does that FRIDAY says nothing. 

Justin Hammer walks in minutes later, a wide smile on his face that Peter will later understand is nothing short of sadistic. 

The panic on Tony's face doesn't belong there. For god's sake, he's Iron Man. 

And yet here they both are. 

 

* * *

 

 

Hammer threatens and he monologues. He drags his fingers along Peter's chin and neck and collarbone, touches until Tony snarls out hideous curses and demands he stop. 

“Pretty little kid. Can see why you like fucking him so much. What is he, your boy toy?” Hammer says, so casual, conversational, even—Tony looks ready to throw up.

“You're a sick bastard,” he hisses, and Peter squeezes his eyes shut and turns away while Hammer makes his way across the room to Tony. 

 

* * *

 

 

Later, Tony is bruised and bleeding, and they are alone. 

Peter’s tried to escape and paid for it. 

 

* * *

 

 

In another life, they're happier than Peter thinks he deserves. Ben is in the kitchen and the apartment smells like home. May's just got home from work, no extra shifts necessary, and she settles on the couch, typing up that book she always said she wanted to write one day. Peter is in charge of decorating for the holidays—neither Ben nor May claim to have an artistic eye, but Peter's always loved the symmetry of mistletoe on the mantle. 

Tony bustles in without knocking, rambling on about how he really needs to update the security in here, complaining that Rhodey doesn't have leave until tomorrow—Pepper trails behind him, laughing, preoccupied with baby Morgan. Peter gets to hold her. Ben's cookies come out of the oven golden-brown and perfect. Ned and MJ's gifts sit under the tree, with strict instructions not to open them until Christmas. 

Peter closes his eyes and imagines what May might've written, what Ben's cookies might've smelled like. 

Chained to a wall. What a way to spend the twenty-third of December. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter whispers, “you can't get us out of here, can you.” 

He doesn't even speak it like a question. He's never seen Tony look so defeated before. Because as Hammer threw punch after sadistic fucking punch, Tony Stark’s characteristic defiance glowed strong, but the moment Hammer threatened Peter, that was it. The charade was up. 

Hammer’s found a way to block FRIDAY’s connection, to block Tony’s access to the suits. The cuffs are fucking electric, however the hell he managed that, and Tony has already exhausted his options. 

Altogether too quickly. 

Hammer’s been planning this for years, if the intricacy behind the operation is any indication. 

“This was never supposed to happen,” Tony says. “Kid, I—I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. You were never supposed to get caught up in this. This—this is my fucking fault.” A personal vendetta, dragged out beyond the realm of reason. Even Peter, with his martyr complex and everything, can see the logic there. 

He won't stand for it. 

“No, Mr. Stark,” Peter says. “Hammer kidnapped us and—and  _ beat  _ you for shits and giggles. It's his fault.  _ Only  _ his.” 

He tugs on the bonds, and takes a deep breath. 

“I can—I might be able to—to break them.” 

_ “No.” _ Tony jerks forward. “Peter.  _ Fuck. No. _ You already—already got shocked once, I—I can’t watch that again. And we don’t—we don’t know how high the voltage goes. It could kill you.” 

The way his voice breaks at the word  _ kill—  _

Peter closes his eyes. He nods. 

(He also promises himself, silently, that the next time Justin Hammer walks into the room, Peter will die at the mercy of the electric cuffs before he lets that man kill his father.) 

 

* * *

 

 

“I want to watch you squirm,” Justin purrs the next day—or is it even the next day? It’s impossible to tell, but it feels like it’s been ages—as he cards his fingers through Peter’s curls. 

“No,” Tony snarls,  _ “no. _ Don’t—you fucking—dare.  _ Don’t  _ bring him into this, he’s  _ sixteen,  _ for  _ God’s sake, Justin—”  _

“Ah ah ah,” Hammer says, smiling, waving a little remote in his hands. Peter knows exactly what the remote does. His stomach drops, his knees nearly giving way beneath him. “That isn’t any way to speak to your betters, now, is it?” 

When Hammer presses the button all Peter knows is pain. 

This time, his legs do give out. He’s left hanging by the shackles, body seizing, unable even to scream. The shock pauses, and he gasps for air, he sobs— 

The second one comes and it’s almost worse. 

After the third, he loses count. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Peter, oh God.” 

Peter wakes and aches for comfort. “M… May?” he rasps. 

_ Oh, _ his brain says.  _ No. She’s gone.  _

Peter could cry. 

“Mis’r St’rk,” he groans, barely conscious. 

“It’s gonna be okay, kid…” Mr. Stark is here. Not gone. Here. His voice sounds so broken, though, and Peter almost wonders if he's imagining it, if he's all alone and gone crazy. 

He wants Mr. Stark to hold him. He wants  _ somebody _ to hold him. 

But there is no calloused hand on his face, no strong engineer's arms pulling him in close. 

Just a broken and faraway voice, and the shadow of agony in every one of Peter's muscles. 

 

* * *

 

 

The hours pass in similar fashion. Sometimes they’re left alone for long periods of time. Sometimes Peter is shocked or beaten—sometimes it’s Tony. The shocks freeze his muscles in the moment and sap his strength for hours afterward. It’s hell. It’s pain, it's agony, it's hell. 

 

But every once in awhile, Peter is strong again. Not like he should be, but close. Close enough. 

He tugs at the restraints. 

 

“Your friends are searching for you, Iron Man,” Justin says simply one day, when he walks in carrying a bat—an actual—a fucking metal baseball bat. 

Peter sees the way Tony goes pale. He knows, in that instant, that Tony is praying to God that the bat isn’t meant for Peter. 

Peter doesn’t know what he’s praying for anymore. 

“What friends?” Tony mutters, rolling his eyes. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Justin says, grinning wildly. “Seeing as you’ll be a bloody corpse within the next ten minutes. You’ll die here and now in front of me. The mighty Iron Man, right beneath my thumb...” 

Justin presses a button on the remote. The cuffs snap open, leaving Tony to collapse. 

And then he swings the bat. 

_ No.  _

Peter rips his own shackles, weakened from days of persistent tugging, right out of the wall. He lunges forward, screaming curses, but Hammer is ready, the remote’s still in his hand, fuck, he needs to be faster— 

Peter lights up like a Christmas tree and hits the ground as hard as Tony did. 

He sees the bat and hears the crunch of bone and smells the blood. He shudders and flinches hard at the sound—he sees Tony’s blood paint the walls as it comes again, and again, and again. The dull  _ smack _ of a metal baseball bat against a body. 

“No,” he begs, and wonders if he’s even making any sound at all, or if it’s all in his head. The rest of his body won’t move. Everything hurts, and he can’t, he can’t, he can’t— 

It's messed up. It should  _ never _ have happened like this—it should never have happened  _ at all.  _

He hears it when Tony gives in, gasps turning to ragged cries. He hears it when finally Tony stops making any sound at all, and he thinks his heart breaks in that moment. (And still Justin, driven crazy, doesn’t stop.) 

Everything after that is a blur, and all Peter can think is  _ that's five.  _

 

* * *

 

 

Five parents, gone one after another. 

Maybe this time Peter will get to go with them. He doesn’t want to be left alone again. Doesn’t want Tony to leave him just like everybody else has. 

He couldn’t survive that. 

(He hopes he won’t.) 

 

* * *

 

 

“Please don't leave me,” Peter begs in the dark, somewhere beyond the realm of consciousness. 

“I'm so sorry, kid.” Tony presses a kiss to his hairline. “You're gonna be great one day. Better than I could be.” 

“No,” Peter cries, strangled. 

“Love you, kiddo,” Tony says, and it's not the first time he's said it, but it might be the last, and Peter just can't  _ do _ this again. 

 

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	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back on my bullshit

 

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He wakes up. 

It's slow, languid. He's heavy and tired. He doesn't want to open his eyes. 

When he remembers the way his hero fell silent, he wishes he hadn't woken up at all. 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter whimpers, curling in on himself, knowing nobody will probably ever respond to that name again. There will be no more lab days and lab nights, no more missions side-by-side. No more long hours of working shoulder to shoulder on one of the suits, interrupted only when Peter tries to wheedle the older man into eating some real food. No more falling asleep on each other on the sofa after Star Wars marathons, no more hugs and playful banter, no more parents for poor little orphaned Peter Parker. 

It's all he can hear—the sound of the bat on Tony's body, and the horrible silence underneath it, because he just  _ stopped, _ because—because he was dead. Peter knows he's dead. 

He can't even allow himself to hope otherwise. 

The tears are streaming unbidden down his face. There's machinery in the room. A heart monitor beeping. Some part of his brain understands— 

That means they were rescued. 

_ Too late, _ Peter thinks, bitter, and a whole new waterfall of tears starts up. 

_ Too fucking late.  _

Mr. Stark is gone and if only, if only— 

He'll be singing  _ “if only” _ for the rest of his life, crying out for something to be different, to be allowed into a universe where somebody got there sooner, where he didn't lose the best thing left in his life. 

He slips back into dizzy sleep. 

 

* * *

 

 

Except then he wakes up again, and this time, something is different. 

For one, it's sudden. Peter shoots up in bed before he fully remembers, and then two things happen at once: 

He fully remembers. 

He sees Mr. Stark lying in the bed across the room. 

Something short-circuits. Peter's brain stops working. As he takes in the machines and the tubes and the heart monitor beeping and the very much  _ alive _ (if unconscious) Tony Stark in front of him, he is also attempting to grapple with the fresh and graphic memories of blood and metal and gruesome silence. 

It doesn't go well. 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter cries out,  _ sobs, _ as he struggles out of his own hospital bed.  _ “Mr. Stark!”  _

“Oh, kid,” somebody says, and it isn't Mr. Stark, but it is familiar. 

Then there are strong arms around him, and Peter fights for a millisecond, but then he recognizes Happy's cologne and breaks apart in the man's embrace. 

“He's alive,” Peter gaps between heaving sobs. “He's—he's alive?” 

“Just barely, kid,” Happy says softly. “But yeah. You both made it through this one.” 

And Peter cries, and cries, and cries. 

 

* * *

 

 

He has to get back in bed. 

He also has to let the nurses put back the IVs that he (accidentally, okay, he’s not a total menace) ripped out, and he has to rest so his body can heal. None of the above are things he particularly wants to do. 

He does them anyway, so long as he can still see Tony. 

Hungry for the comfort of the father who was never really his, he stays in bed, drifting in and out of sleep—sometimes quiet oblivion, but more often plagued by nightmares. He wakes up and can’t always remember that he’s safe now, they’re safe now, they’re okay. 

But he sees Tony, there in the bed across the room, and the steady beeping of the heart monitor lulls him back into a soporific calm. 

The next few days pass this way. One moment bleeds into the next, and between the hospital, however long he spent unconscious, and Hammer’s bloody torture cell, Peter’s lost all sense of time. 

 

* * *

 

 

(Once upon a time, in a world before the water was drugged, it was almost Christmas.) 

 

* * *

 

 

“Peter.” 

Captain America is standing in the doorway. 

Peter doesn’t care. 

Once upon a time he would've been starstruck, but that illusion’s been shattered just as much as Peter’s visions of Iron Man. Living with Tony Stark, working side-by-side with him, pulling him out of panic attacks and (in the most dire of moments) switching his coffee to decaf so he’ll get some sleep—Peter’s seen now that the man in the can is just as human as anybody else. The gradual realization is its own kind of beautiful. 

In Cap’s case, the change was more jarring. 

Happy was the one to explain it all. As soon as he got Peter back in bed, he spared no detail: Rhodey and Pepper—he as the Iron Patriot, she in her brand-new Rescue suit—were the ones to finally bring them home, after days of searching and planning. When the moment came and the Rogue Avengers still hadn’t responded to their distress call, they didn’t wait. 

“And thank God we didn’t,” Happy muttered. “Even another couple minutes and Tony would’ve been dead. If we’d waited for the Rogues to show?” He shook his head. “Kid, you probably wouldn’t have been waking up either.” 

He was flippant, uncharacteristically so. Peter’s gaze lingered on Happy. The man was far more shaken than he was willing to let on, that much was clear. 

And now here Steve Rogers stands, in the doorway, sorrow in his blue eyes that doesn’t deserve to be there. Peter’s standing up before he even knows what he’s doing. 

“Get out,” he says, voice shaking. “You don’t—you’re not allowed in here. You  _ weren’t there. _ He’d be  _ dead  _ if it weren’t for Pepper and Rhodey, all because—all because you couldn’t agree over some  _ stupid papers— _ ” 

And oh sure, the Accords were more than just some stupid papers. Peter knows that. 

But he also knows this isn’t the first time Steve has left Tony to die. 

And even after they were pardoned, even after they saved the universe together, after Tony would've given them a home—and he  _ would've, _ just the same as he had back in 2012, because that was who he was, because he gave Peter a home— 

Even then they'd kept their brand as the Rogues and stayed far, far away from a man who just wanted to save people. 

There’s a flicker of something unreadable in the so-called hero’s eyes, and then Cap steps back. 

Peter doesn’t realize he’s crying until he feel the tears dripping off his chin. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Peter, kid, c’mon,” Rhodey says later, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Believe me, I’m as pissed as you are. But Steve’s blaming himself enough, okay? Trust me, he doesn’t need your help.” 

Peter shrugs Rhodey’s hand off. “I don’t care,” he mutters. “He’s supposed to be a hero, right? So he’s gotta at least try. And he  _ didn’t  _ even try.” 

“Kid, it isn’t his fault he didn’t get that distress call.” 

“But it  _ is  _ his fault he wasn’t here.” 

And somewhere in his heart, Peter gets that he’s being unreasonable. But he’s angry and he’s scared, because  _ what if Mr. Stark doesn’t wake up, _ and he’s desperate for somebody to blame. 

 

* * *

 

 

So many broken bones. 

Tony's ribcage? Barely there anymore. Both lungs perforated. Left femur shattered. The list goes on. 

That bat left a hell of a mark. 

And if Justin had, even once, aimed for the head, Tony would be long gone. In this single instance, his sadism is their lucky break—he didn't want Tony to die of a headshot; Hammer wanted him to suffer, bleeding out slowly, tied to consciousness by the pain of a hundred broken bones. 

He dragged it out, and for that reason alone Tony's still here. Still fighting. 

“I thought he was dead,” Pepper murmurs late one night, when Peter can't sleep. “When we got there. There was blood everywhere, and you were both—you were both so still, I—I thought he was gone, thought maybe you were, too, and we were too late. I should have known you're too stubborn to leave us just yet.” She smiles and adds, “Peas in a pod, the two of you.” 

Peter nods, a little sick, and he doesn't know how to tell her how grateful he is. 

That she came. 

That she's here. 

That this, right here, is her trying. 

Pepper's smile softens. “He'll be okay,” she promises. 

Peter closes his eyes and prays that she's right. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Kid.” 

Peter jolts. 

The book in his hands— a brand-new hardback copy of  _ Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, _ MJ's get-well present—clatters to the ground. It's late, and quiet, and the sound is deafening. Too afraid to breathe, Peter stares across the room 

and into Tony's eyes. 

“Kid,” the man repeats, voice hoarse, tears in his brown eyes making it look like they're melting. 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter breathes, and in the next instant he's across the room. “Mr. Stark! You're—you're awake! You're—”  _ alive. You're alive. I thought you were dead. I thought you were going to die.  _

_ I thought I was alone in that cell. I thought it was just me and a body, alone with your murderer.  _

_ I thought you were dead.  _

“Oh, kiddo,” Tony whispers, as though Peter has somehow said it all without saying anything—and Peter just  _ breaks. _ Tony reaches up, and his shaking thumb brushes Peter's cheek as he cups his face. “Oh,  _ Peter.” _

Peter clutches Tony's other hand like a lifeline. 

When Rhodey stumbles in, precious minutes later, they're both crying. 

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well!! y'all wanted it fixed!! i think i fixed it ;0 let me know how i did

**Author's Note:**

> there is a second chapter... i might post it or just leave this as complete. depends on if you guys want me to fix this horrible thing i have done :^)


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